"Actually, Jeff, I'm no longer in research. " "No?" "No. I'm in recruiting. And we're all terribly impressed with you. With your application. And so soon after Miss Rossmire! Do you know Miss Rossmire, by the way? I'm sure you'll like her. " I lurched to my feet. "You--you're impressed with me? But all those red checks. All those missing citations. All that--" "Just a formality during the apprentice period. Nothing to worry about now. I'm really quite charming when you get to know me, as you'll discover in the fullness of time. " He extended his hand. "What do you say?" I simply stared at him. "Do you need some time to think about it? Of course you're perfectly welcome to stay here and carry on as before. I will be moving on, and there will be no further obstacles to your advancement. Should you elect to remain, however, I should perhaps mention that matters will not proceed as you might wish. " He leaned up against the window, resting his head against his forearm. "If you and I part company tonight, you will continue here for another twelve years. It's all a bit conventional, I'm afraid. After four years you move into a small town house in Shirlington, telling yourself that you need space for an office in which to write your novel. Two years later you fall behind on the mortgage, and your new girlfriend--Cheryl, from copyediting--seizes upon the opening to move in with you, in the interests of sharing expenses. What had been a casual, halfhearted romance on your part now becomes fraught with the expectation of marriage. You resist for two more years, finally bowing to the inevitable two days before Cheryl's thirtieth birthday. Within three years you begin an affair with a woman you meet at Gilpin Books, which becomes public just as your wife discovers a lump in her left breast. Her bravery and fortitude as she battles with cancer is thrown into brilliant relief by your disgrace; she is a martyr in the eyes of everyone you have ever known.
Though you tend to your dying wife with saintly devotion, it is too late for redemption. At her funeral fourteen months later you sob inconsolably and no one makes a move to comfort you, not even Kate and Brian. In time you turn to drink, and after many warnings and probation periods, you finally lose your job at LifeSpan. For a while you cobble together a living of freelance writing and editing, but the loneliness weighs heavily. One rainy night, driving home from a strip club in the District, you slam your car into the base of the Appomattox statue at the corner of Washington and Duke. You are not hurt--indeed, in your drunken state you find the accident to be the very last word in hilarity. You climb out of your car, spread your arms to the heavens, and roar with laughter as the rain drenches your face. At that moment, you are struck and killed by a dairy van. " I couldn't speak. He reached past me for the list of missing citations on my desk. "I don't understand, " I said at last. "Why is it--how do you--" "Don't you see?" He spread the page across his knee and erased the last of the red check marks, brushing away the crumbs with a flick of his hand. "It just is. You'll see. It just is. " EVERYTHING started to happen very quickly then, but I found time for a final piece of business. Before we left, I slipped a note and a five-dollar bill under the door of Kate's office: Aeternum vale. Farewell forever. Next time, the nachos are on me.
Chapter Seventeen
The Innsmouth Nook
A. LEE MARTINEZ
A. Lee Martinez has published six novels, most of which involve either monsters or armchair metaphysics. Usually both. He has a reputation as a "humorous fantasy" writer that he's not always comfortable with, but as long as the checks keep coming, he'll keep cashing them. If you see him on the street, please, don't call him zany. His first name is Alex, but he sometimes goes by Lee (presumably) to confuse and beguile his many enemies.
THE box held horrors beyond imagining, papers inscribed with hopeless-ness and pain. All men faced it on a daily basis, praying to whatever gods might be, cruel and indifferent to the suffering of mortals, that it would not be the end that they found when they reached into its darkened interior. That ever- present box, haunting every house, every apartment, every place where civilized men dwelt, reminding all that they were not masters of their fate, that no matter how much a man might want to deny it, the universe demanded its pound of flesh and would never be satisfied, would never stop sucking the life from a man, would feed on misery and sweat and blood until a man's death. Sometimes, even beyond that. Philip, like all civilized men, had learned to live with the box. Even become somewhat expectant of its demands. Lately, though, he'd realized just how much it had enslaved him. How he trudged to it every morning and bowed before it like a puppet without a will of his own. But even knowing that didn't free him from its tyranny. So this morning, like always, he walked to the box, that maddening box, and reached into its shadowy depths and withdrew its unholy commandments. "Shit, " he groaned. "Bills. " He slammed the mailbox shut ruefully. He thought about getting an ax and chopping the damned thing down. But you couldn't kill the thing. The box wasn't the beast, not even the head of the beast. It was just a tentacle, reaching out from the great unknown, from that horrible place where credit card bills, junk mail, and despair were spawned. A chill wind swept up from the ocean below. The clouds parted to allow a glimpse of sunshine. But it was only a glimpse before the sky became that endless broiling gray. Philip ran inside. Vance was making breakfast.
The smell of eggs and bacon was the first encouraging moment of the day. "It's the last of the eggs, " said Vance, ruining the moment. "Anything good in the mail?" Philip grunted, unable to articulate in words what Vance already knew. It was easier for Vance, though. He'd just come along with Philip on this venture, but it was Philip who'd thought of it. Why the hell did he think anyone would want to visit a bed- and-breakfast in this chilly cultural wasteland? There were areas in New England, plenty of them, with quaintness to spare, with color-changing leaves and folksy folks full of folksy homespun wisdom accompanied by folksy accents. And then there was Clam Bay. Cold even when sunny, gloomy even during the four weeks of "summer, " trees without leaves all year long, and full of weird people. And not in the quirky way. No, these were just weird. Quiet, not unfriendly, but wary of strangers. And anyone whose family hadn't lived in the town for at least five generations was a stranger. It didn't help any that Philip's great- great-grandfather had been one of Clam Bay's citizens. And that the house Philip had inherited had been a literal ruin until he'd invested thousands of dollars into fixing it up in hopes of attracting tourists. He was still an outsider. It was kind of hard to hide. Not just because everyone in Clam Bay had a tendency to wear gray, shuffle slowly as if dragging themselves reluctantly across the land, and speak in a slow, halting, decidedly non-quaint, nonfolksy way. They also looked alike. It was a small gene pool in this town, and it hadn't really worked out that well for any of the citizens of Clam Bay. Also, the clamming was lousy in Clam Bay. Philip and Vance ate breakfast in near silence.